Posts: 51 to 75 of 82

I don't understand the reason for this debate. Musical Professor showed by his words and actions that he needed dealing with using mor than just a warning and the audiogames.net staff dealt with him. End of story.

I must clear up some confusion it seems. First of all I am not debating the ban of musical professor, I think his manners were childish and appalling. My primary reaction was the term misogyny being thrown around, but I need more time to properly think over and address Nocturnus's last post.Dark, I never asked for privilages nor said anyone should have them based on passed conduct, whether said conduct was good or bad. I simply believe that people can change, which you yourself has stated. I am of the attitude though that musical professor won't be coming back to the forum if he has to crawl and beg for it. Apology is not everyone's strong point. I simply wish we could put a temporary lid on the nusence, but that's my philosophy for most cases barring extremely rare exceptions. A forced lock to prevent an abusive person from getting in until he or she has calmed down to look at it rationally, or til people have forgotten it.

Anyway my alcohol has arrived, 12 frekin' bottles of poison on my shelf, so you won't be hearing from me for a while

Nocturnus:According to Merriam-Webster: Misogyny refers specifically to a hatred of women. The word is formed from the Greek roots misein (“to hate”) and gynē (“woman”).

I'm with you on that term so far. Now let's have a little fun with the second definition.

Nocturnus: According to wikipedia: Misogyny is the hatred of, contempt for, or prejudice against women or girls. Misogyny can be manifested in numerous ways, including social exclusion, sex discrimination, hostility, androcentrism, patriarchy, male privilege, belittling of women, violence against women, and sexual objectification.

This ... is quite disgusting in my opinion. It is exactly like using racism without any regard for what it actually means. Consider the following hypothetical cenario, which, according to your Wikipedia would be misogynistic.A woman is in a bar.A drunk man comes up to her and makes a joke:What's my name? Do you want to know my name? It's hugh mungus. My name is Hugh Mungus.The woman starts screaming and going out of control, acting like a little child. The previous case is well known and is up for debate, but it was the first that came to mind. But we're not yet done here. The women is acting like a little spoiled child, so the man (the internet in this case as the story went) decides to belittle her.And according to you that's misogyny, a heavily loaded word in a negative light. We both agree that misogyny is hatred and prejudice against women, but how can belittling a person that acts like a child be misogyny. After all, the belittling came as a result of her actions, and not his prejudice or hatred for women. Had she not been a a woman, the lable wouldn't be slapped on the perp, just that he was belittling a brat.I could give you a hundred more examples, some real, some fictional that could be real, that could be construed as misogyny only because the victim was a female.

Nocturnus:If we use the last two definitions as a point of reference, I contend the following statement, straight from the email, falls under the umbrella of sexual discrimination and sexual objectification and does not make any attempt to hide the implication as such and, more importantly, is phrased rather hatefully."Seriously, get the fuck off my dick for crying out loud and go fuck someone else who is actually causing some bullshit on the sight instead of making somehting out of nothing."

How is this hatred towards women? Or prejudice? Maybe I'm not seeing what the rest of progressive society is, so help me.

Nocturnus:I've said it before and I'll say it again; if you don't intend for people to infer something by your writing style, consider editing and or don't write

I'll grant you the fact that you felt it was misogyny given the context on the forum post, but you specifically said that the emails were misogynistic in nature which I disagree with as explained already. You can not read this guy's mind so it'd be unfair to say stuff about him you don't know to be true.

A general comment follows:For me, reading or hearing the word misogyny makes me flinch because I have very conservative opinions regarding those matters. That being said I do not have any hate or prejudice against women and judge everyone on an equal bases with the exception for actual, and factual differences between the two sexes. But I hear lables being flung at me and my political group so often that it's sad, and it's even more sad to see it on a forum where everyone is supposed to be just a screen name and their thoughts. Given other events that have happened on the forum in the passed which I shall not bring up unless I'm asked to. I feel that the crying about sexism is unjust as it bares nothing substancial, as I have pointed out with this response.I'm sure I've missed something here, but I always have. Do correct me.

so, according to you, the man above should be allowed to make the joke at a woman because he's a man and she's a woman? I'm sorry, but that doesn't fly with me. had he made that joke at a man, he'd probably be getting his teeth fed to him! Wrecktally! the implication in this case is obvious; he's saying he has a huge penis and the woman should, by default, be interested.

I do not know what my future holds, but I do know who holds my future.

There are many old tales, intended to warn against dealing with the devil, that demonstrate wishes or requests being granted but twisted in undesirable ways. A child in such a story could wish to be the fastest runner in his gym class, with any number of outcomes. He may be unaffected but all of his classmates become horribly crippled. He may still lose every race because he was granted the ability to just speak faster than any of them. Maybe he can run and win, but he is never able to stop running until he dies. The idea is sometimes referred to as the "Jackass Genie", and by fluctuating between taking every wish as perfectly literal or substituting in figurative meanings, it becomes nearly impossible to actually get what you truly wanted with your wish.

There are many people in this world who turn into a version of the "Jackass Genie" when minority groups are involved. I can think of plenty of people who have race on the brain. To them, the whole world is against their particular race, and they will go to great lengths to twist anything said into being about race. Choose white rice over fried rice at dinner? They'll be offended because in their mind you've just made some sort of jab at them. If you watch one TV show over another, they will believe it is because the show has a different number of actors from a particular ethnic background. If you try to explain that the ethnic background of the actors has nothing to do with what shows you watch, the "Jackass Genie" is still in effect, and will twist that to further pull you down the same path. "So you admit then that you don't care about people from race such-and-such!" You cannot win, ever.

In more recent years gender issues seem to have risen up to the same intensity as racial ones. I've tried to have conversations with women who turn literally everything into attacks on feminism. No matter how careful you are, everything said is going to be twisted using leaps that are so convoluted and extreme that no sane person is going to follow. People eventually get shoved into so deep a hole that they simply give up and walk away from the conversation, feeling frustrated and ashamed at the state of society, while the "Jackass Genie" leaves feeling further justified in their cause... since they just exposed another anti-feminist.

Lundin, you are in a situation where you just aren't going to be able to win. I think you can see that anything you're saying keeps being put through the same filter, and will continue to push you down the same path. You have to fight the urge to fix the situation/misunderstanding because this is a trap, and you're already in it. Like the example above, the only answer is to walk away and feel frustrated.

From the very start of this I've been trying to keep myself out of the trap, but I felt compelled to jump in long enough to help you get out. No one ever, EVER, realizes that they are playing the role of a "Jackass Genie", and being accused of it tends to upset people. In real life conversations it results in the Genie then trying to Show me how they are being perfectly reasonable with how they've interpreted everything said, because they are not capable of seeing how insane their leaps are. "But Jeremy, my co-worker said said he'd see me tomorrow! That means he is watching me at work which means he doesn't believe I can do my job properly because I am a woman, and it also means he expects me to be there because obviously I can't afford to take a day off, which is because women get paid less than men! How could anyone disagree that he made a blatantly sexist statement against me as a woman?!" So I walk away and get thrown into the anti-feminist camp along with the poor sap I was stepping in to save. Clearly if I walk away or try to stay out of it, then I've sided against the Genie and therefore are also against their cause.

Actually, if that comment cited is taken purely on its own, it is nothing more or less than an explicit reference to genitalia. It could just as easily have been levelled at a man. It's inappropriate no matter who it was aimed at, but it does not constitute misogyny in my book.

it comes down to the same thing though, a matter of subjectivity where you have to find some central reference point by which you can be objective. You're going to end up stepping on someone's toes by doing anything that is anything in this crazy world!

I do not know what my future holds, but I do know who holds my future.

Thanks Aprone for that wonderful post. Came right after Nocturnus's out right ... yeah he should justify that or at least try to address my actual point, but that'd be inconvenient I assume. As a matter of fact I believe the biggest racists and sexists there is, yet again barring exceptions of extreme cases, are the people who fight for it with their entire soul, because they only see race or gender (/ sex). I, and other normal people don't really do that, so how can we be racist if we don't think in terms of race?Anyway as you said this is a battle that can not be won, experiences in other places should've made me aware of this, but I guess I fall for it each time. I should've known the outcome given the things I reacted to. I'll be stepping away from here until something substancial has come about.

@Nocturnus mate, we disagree about a lot of things, but I have always respected you and thought you an intelligent and well-spoken guy. After post 54 I am sorry to say I've lost that respect entirely. Go back, review my post again and if you feel the need to, please respond with something that's actually intelligent and addresses what I said. If you need clarification of some things in my post, please ask and I shall do my best.

Basically, my point is that people probably wouldn't be trying to call it misandry if it was aimed at a man. You'd call it a crude reference to genitalia and an attack that shouldn't be made. To me, that's more than enough.

The issue here - which admittedly has been blown a bit out of shape by the back-and-forth - is that while this comment -was spoken to a woman, it could just as easily have been spoken to a man. It is offensive no matter its target. What if MusicalProfessor is gay? What if he's ignorant of Nightshade's gender or of the definition of misogyny in the first place? These things might change his intent, which then means one has to consider whether or not the comment actually represents misogyny as it is defined. I maintain that it probably doesn't, but that, as has been stated before, he's definitely crossed a line, and not just by a little either. An indefinite ban - one contingent upon change on MusicalProfessor's end - sounds much better than a permanent ban, which by its definition is not up for change.

Sorry for shaking everything up by sticking my nose into this. This has gotten bigger than I think it needed to be.

@LordLundin,If it is so then it is so, but I didn't intend on making a name for myself out here that aimed to be respected by everyone. Idealy that would be wonderful, but I'm aware of the world I live in, a world that will address me as anything less than normal, sane and inteligent if I'm not seen as normal, sane or inteligent by someone else.

I do not know what my future holds, but I do know who holds my future.

Read this entire topic, kinda surprised my self.All I know is that guys say get off my dick in certain places (particularly those where it seems like musical professor might be from based on all his yalls) to other guys all the time, it's just a phrase, I don't blame you for assuming in the moment though.If I were Nocternus, I'd be upset on my girlfriend's behalf, even if I was trying to disconnect my self from the situation, and Dark lives in the UK, a pretty liberal place for the most part, particularly considering the type of people he probably encounters in his chosen career path all the time.I'm glad you mods talked it out first though, a solid idea considering the personal nature, but I don't know who all was involved in that.If he had said, "get off my dick you stupid bitch and go suck your boyfriend Nocternus's instead" than yeah, fuck that guy, that's cut and dry misogyny, and no one needs that shit poisoning their community.I don't really think he'll change, but I agree with the one year ban suggestion as well, because of the continued emails.However even then, a permaban seems a bit over the top, lacking any (credible) or highly graphic, personal threats, since this kind of thing is extremely common in the wider internet, and I'm not even talking the big names like Reddit and 4Chann, so if this is shocking to you than I am both amused, and (honestly) happy for you guys.

Also about this cheating thing, I can't imagine why anyone could give two shits what someone did to their own game or how, as long as they didn't effect anyone else E.G. multiplayer or score board.In that case it did, and that's not cool, so since the mods have decided to step in on piracy, talking about bans from games, code stealing, hacking and the like, than it follows that they would disallow talking about this as well, but it's pretty hard to police, just like the code stealing.

And yeah, I've seen several topics over the years that basically turned into one of those oil well fires that goes on, and on, and on, right on the front page of which ever room it's in so it's not hard to keep up with, and nothing was done for a very long time about it.Sometimes the retribution was godly in it's application, though often incomplete, but most other times it was just kind of, capped off after the fact.With this many mods, I can't find any excuse accept not wanting to deal with the nonsense, which I get, but it's also what you guys signed up for, and if certain members aren't able to do their job and look at recent high traffic in threads or read reports each day 80% of the time do to other obligations, than they should be replaced, no hard feelings from the kind of people who were accepted in the first place anyway I'd hope...Allot of places have to cycle through admins like this, it's just the nature of the beast.That or just have a different tag for those members who are only responsible for news and database stuff, and disconnect them from anything moderation wise.I don't see everyone being away at once being a likely reason either, considering how many times it's happened, though admittedly it was worse when their were less of you guys.The response is still often lackluster however, but I get that this is a comparatively pretty forgiving place, and I still post here knowing that.Maybe we as users just need to report posts more? I usually don't for the really obvious ones as to not flood you guys, but like half of those were never addressed (not common) or only resulted in a warning weeks after the fact (much more common) so...

I would also really like to see negative karma come back, it's probably like three times a week that I wish for it, and it will likely reduce unnecessary reporting anyway.The reason it was removed in the first place always seemed kind of ridiculously PC and artificial (if well meaning) to me anyway, and upvote and downvote, like and dislike has become a standard all over the web for a good reason.If you have even a slightly thicker skin than the average hormonal teen, which you really should if you intend to use the internet anyway, than this is actually a useful tool to know weather you need to STFU or not, in order to avoid turning people against you, rather than getting them to listen to your argument.Hence you can modify your delivery, and everyone wins.I'm not saying it's always a good thing or doesn't cause conflict, but I think we should at least try it out again.

This... -- Is CNN'.Well Ted, it sure looks like there's been uh, quite a bit of violence around here"aaoh, that violence was terrible'!"Yeah it was, pretty bad.

I'll admit there are times when I wish negative karma or thumbs down existed, but I also understand the reason it was removed.

The problem with negative karma or thumbs down is that some people won't be able to resist the temptation to abuse it and give someone an undeserved thumbs down simply because they posted an opinion or view that they didn't like.

I think that's why eBay got rid of being able to give a buyer a negative feedback if they paid for their bid for the very same abuse reason.

the other thing I think we need to consider about negative karma is the fact that some people simply don't care about their karma, and will carry on being the person that they are, regardless of how little karma they have accumulated. I'm not saying the karma system is bad, but I often wonder how many people on this forum actually pay atention to what their karma is, or could care less about it.

OrkoEbay is a bad example because allot of dislikes their can effect your sales, where as here it only effects your standing in the community.Also, that's exactly the point of like dislike, to show that you disagree with their opinion or how they presented it, without escalating it to a report.

BryantI understand that you don't think it will help the forum as much as I may believe it will, and I admit that I'm not sure either, but if the problem is people ignoring it than at least it won't make those people worse either... So why not give it a shot right?I mean, immature people are going to be immature no matter what, on both sides, so if they want to play stupid games than they'll find a way with any medium you give them as it is, but for those that can construct a decent argument, it's a useful tool, and frankly their posts ten to get allot more attention anyway.

This... -- Is CNN'.Well Ted, it sure looks like there's been uh, quite a bit of violence around here"aaoh, that violence was terrible'!"Yeah it was, pretty bad.

Yeah, but someone's opinion or view doesn't warrant a report, if I posted that I thought NVDA was a piece of crap, would you report me to the mods? I wouldn't, it's just an opinion and not breaking any rules.

Personally, regardless of what I think of NVDA, I would never post such a remark because it would more than likely be a source of trouble or start a flame war.

Nor should it give or take away karma. In my opinion, you award karma to someone for being helpful, not because they agree or disagree with you. At least that's the way I use it.

And finally, as for my own karma? Every once in a great while, maybe once a month or so, I will look at it, but it's not something I worry about or obsess over, it's just a curiosity to look at from time to time.

Some people may think that reporting you would be okay because your inciting a flame war with such an obviously inflammatory comment, I wouldn't, but I know a few that probably would.

That's the power of Karma, you get to use it in which ever way you wish.It does reduce it's meaningfulness, but it's up to you weather or not to pay attention to it or not anyway.And if the argument is weather or not people who don't look at their karma in the first place will care about the change, than I don't understand why it should matter to those people anyway.This suggestion is for the people that do care.

This... -- Is CNN'.Well Ted, it sure looks like there's been uh, quite a bit of violence around here"aaoh, that violence was terrible'!"Yeah it was, pretty bad.

And that is the root of the problem, with no rules to go by, everyone uses karma based on their own interpretation of what it is supposed to be for, and with everyone doing their own thing, how much karma you have devolves down to how many people approved of messages you posted, with such an unknown mix of reasons why messages were given a thumbs up, the karma reading is essentially meaningless.

So why even bother with it?

Just as I rarely even look at my karma because to me it's just a curiosity rather than something to be concerned about, I also very rarely award karma for the same reasons.

The mods could disable the entire karma system and I, for one, wouldn't miss it a bit.

Hmmm, missed this discussion and I'm not exactly sure what karma has to do with anything here, but since I have been involved with the Karma system I'll put a word in.

The karma system was first introduced by Sander in I believe 2010, to see how it worked, and basically it turned into a slapping contest, with people getting smacked with thumbs down over and over again, indeed there were more thumbs downs than thumbs ups, and what thumbs ups there were didn't matter (some poor person even got reduced to minus 139 Karma in the course of about a week). We discussed a solution to this problem but none was forthcoming at the time so the system was removed.

When I took over Administrating the forum in 2012, I saw that there was an option to enable karma but remove the thumbs down setting.

On the core exiles forum is a system called "give a gift" which is just as it sounds. Under each post appears the names of people who "gifted" that post (if any), it's just a way to say "here I like what you just said!" and is fairly nice.

I thought Karma could be a similar thing here, not anything major just a way to literally stick a thumbs up at someone's post and say "hay that's cool!"

What reasons you might choose to give someone Karma, and whether indeed you care about the system is up to you, but hay it's there so use it if you wish or not if you don't, and now that the negative karma connotation is removed there is no risk or possible bad consequence to using or not using it.

of course the Karma system has bugger all to do with moderation, so I'm not really sure what it has to do with this topic in question, since as Orko pointed out whether you use or take note of the Karma system is entirely up to you, and moderator action needs to be a less easy to ignore than that, but that's the history of Karma anyway.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see, Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

Yeah, imagine if the reason we began handing out moderation warnings or hell even bands were based on what we see in your Karma? We could easily do that with the current system in place! Everyone who doesn't have karma above a certain number? Don't even think twice about the subject matter! MODERATION! I hate being seen as a tyrant, but I've learned over and over again that ya can't please everyone...

I do not know what my future holds, but I do know who holds my future.

@Orko,If myself could be entirely satisfied, I'd work on that, but oh, am I ever human, flawed, egocentric, narcicistic, and ready and willing at a moment's notice to believe I'm all that and a bag of chips, deserving of it all!

I do not know what my future holds, but I do know who holds my future.

Is it possible at all to hide a user's karma on the post display but only display it to that user's profile? Also on another forum I used to be on they had a thanks system, you could thank a post, it got removed fairly fast for people abusing it and spamming the hell out of it. I'd argue against a list of people who hit thumbs up on a post fofr the same reason honestly....the entire karma system just sounds like a big dick waving popularity contest to me. I'd rather see it gone honestly if only to prevent a popularity contest